


Distance (Makes the Heart Grow Fonder)

by Half_SubmergedinPurgatory



Series: TG Prompt Collection [50]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: F/M, Implied Touriko, Promp Fic, Sometime before Nishiki ran into Haise, nishikimi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 20:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11882505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory/pseuds/Half_SubmergedinPurgatory
Summary: ANONYMOUS:Nishiki keeps photos of Kimi in his wallet





	Distance (Makes the Heart Grow Fonder)

Nishiki swung by Anteiku infrequently. However, he always showed up eventually.   
  
Touka could go months without seeing him but always knew to expect his return.  
  
It was no secret that he’d started cannibalizing. He slaughtered anyone who was a threat to Anteiku’s new territory ( _he sometimes gave them souveniers…Aogiri masks_ ). He had, in that tsundere way of his, picked up part of Kaneki’s old burden and placed it own his own shoulders.   
  
Nishiki also maintained a niche a couple wards away, though Touka never asked him why. She’d always assumed it was the same reason she avoided a certain bakery like the plague.  
  
She worried about him.   
  
Time and time again he would walk in through their door and collapse against a chair. She’d bring him coffee with brown sugar cubes and pray that tiny bits of human meat were enough to stave off the mental taint of cannibalism.  
  
He always left looking a little better. She never really felt relieved, though.  
  
Eventually, he started coming in looking better too. Sturdier, more centred, and as snarky as she remembered. She’d greet him with,   
  
“Shitty Nishiki.”  
  
And he’d call her,  
  
“Shitty granny.”   
  
Now that her hair matched Yomo’s.  
  
She still spiked his coffee heavily, but things felt almost right again ( _not that ever completely could…not while they all waited_ ).  
  
Then, one day, he came in with his mask cracked, blood all over the front of his shirt, and pain in his eyes. He sat at his table in a silence that Touka couldn’t bring herself to interrupt.  
  
She’d seen the investigator herself. She knew why Nishiki was injured.   
  
Finally gathering the determination to bring Nishiki his usual coffee with an understanding smile on her face, Touka snuck up behind her friend. Before she could even reach him, she watched the tension melt from his body.  
  
She peered over his shoulder and bit back a sad sigh. Nishiki’s fingers were carefully caressing a worn photograph of a smiling woman. Carefully, quietly, Touka snuck away.  
  
Kimi was a good woman - Touka could still remember her expression when she’d called Touka’s kagune beautiful. She was someone who would be waiting for Nishiki when he finally brought his sorry ass back to her. Touka was happy he hadn’t forgotten…  
  
Her hands clenched on the locket around her neck ( _safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t crush the photo inside_ ) and the Y.K. engraved on it bit into her skin.  
  
She wouldn’t forget either.  
  
She hoped she’d also have someone waiting for her.


End file.
